military expeditions. I was saved!

"When the jailer came I proposed that he should help me to escape and
fly with me, and that we should take with us as much as we could
carry. There was no reason for hesitation; he agreed. Vessels were
about to sail for the Levant. All possible precautions were taken.
Bianca furthered the schemes which I suggested to my accomplice. It
was arranged that Bianca should only rejoin us in Smyrna for fear of
exciting suspicion. In a single night the hole was enlarged, and we
dropped down into the Secret Treasury of Venice.

"What a night that was! Four great casks full of gold stood there. In
the outer room silver pieces were piled in heaps, leaving a gangway
between by which to cross the chamber. Banks of silver coins
surrounded the walls to the height of five feet.

"I thought the jailer would go mad. He sang and laughed and danced and
capered among the gold, till I threatened to strangle him if he made a
sound or wasted time. In his joy he did not notice at first the table
where the diamonds lay. I flung myself upon these, and deftly filled
the pockets of my sailor jacket and trousers with the stones. Ah!
Heaven, I did not take the third of them. Gold ingots lay underneath
the table. I persuaded my companion to fill as many bags as we could
carry with the gold, and made him understand that this was our only
chance of escaping detection abroad.

"'Pearls, rubies, and diamonds might be recognized,' I told him.

"Covetous though we were, we could not possibly take more than two
thousand livres weight of gold, which meant six journeys across the